How Chinese OTAs Turned Around Three Years of COVID Isolation

Summary

Chinese travelers are back on the map. Three years of isolation ended on January 8, 2023. As China transitions into a new travel era, OTA bookings at home and abroad are picking up speed. Benefiting from the government-enforced downtime and domestic protections, Chinese OTAs largely revamped their business models during 36 months of COVID disruption.

This article reviews the many developments and initiatives undertaken by Chinese OTAs in the past several years, including: growing their customer bases in lower-tier cities; embracing user-generated content; augmenting their livestreaming capabilities; and preparing for social commerce challengers that also drew large domestic crowds. These players have all closely monitored the changes in travel regulations, consumer expectations and trends, readying themselves for the coming outbound travel surge.